Chase co-chairs international procedural law conference in Toronto

Oscar Chase, Russell D. Niles Professor of Law and co-director of the Dwight D. Opperman Institute of Judicial Administration (IJA), served as co-chair of the 2009 conference of the International Association of Procedural Law (IAPL) held in Toronto June 3-5. Hosted by York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School, NYU School of Law, and the IJA, the IAPL conference drew the world’s leading specialists in procedural law and dispute resolution, with 63 speakers and delegates from more than 30 countries.

The conference, titled “The Future of Categories—Categories of the Future,” focused on the convergence of common law and civil law as each system borrows from the other in the pursuit of more effective civil dispute resolution. Delegates discussed the justice systems of an array of countries, including Canada, China, Croatia, England, Israel, Japan, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, and the U.S. Examining the evolving roles of witnesses, counsel, judges, and the opposing parties, delegates also considered the procedural lessons of international commercial arbitration and international criminal tribunals as those systems implement changes. “Reforms may be making the practical distinctions between one country and another within the civil or common law more significant than the distinctions between the civil and common law generally,” wrote Chase and his conference co-chairs in the introduction to the conference program.

In addition to his co-chair duties, Chase participated in a panel on rethinking the divide between common law and civil law. Linda Silberman, Martin Lipton Professor of Law, moderated a panel on developments in England, Japan, and Turkey, while Burt Neuborne, Inez Milholland Professor of Civil Liberties, joined the panel "Convergence at the Interstices of Substance and Process." Judith Resnik ’75, Arthur Liman Professor of Law at Yale Law School, participated in a panel on the changing roles of judges and parties.